


With silver bells, and cockleshells, and pretty maids all in a row

by Familiaris



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: details are left intentionally vague so nobody can complain about spoilers, i also have no clue how to tag this and im very sorry, i might not be familiar enough with the series to write anything good, i only finished watching a lp of ndrv3 last night so..., if i watch again and get a better grasp on things i might write something. yknow. Better Than This, oh hey its my first thing on here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 18:37:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18643819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Familiaris/pseuds/Familiaris
Summary: The class may be dwindling, but the makeshift graveyard is growing.  Every loss leaves a gaping wound. When all is said and done, maybe there really is nothing left.





	With silver bells, and cockleshells, and pretty maids all in a row

o n e

The first time he buries a body his lungs burn, heart raw and bleeding, soul lingering somewhere beyond his body as he lays all that he can salvage to rest, shreds of cloth and hair and disjointed body parts. He buries _him_ too, the two of them, killer and victim, and it wasn't supposed to _be_ like this, she was supposed to hold them  _together_ , not kickstart the game- 

He steps back when it is done, freshly overturned earth the only sign of the two graves in the courtyard.

 

t w o

The second time is no easier, but also no harder. Again, killer and victim, again overturning the sod and loam into makeshift graves, deep and dark and unmarked. He wonders, vacantly, if realigning the stripped bones into a human form is the same as decorating a body for a funeral. Wonders how many more they might lose. How many more graves they would all have to dig.

He prays there will be no more graves in the courtyard.

 

t h r e e

Three bodies. He refrains from laying one to rest. He knows her wishes. One of the girls says her goodbyes, settling her _down_ , _down_ , _down_. His hands know this routine by now, tucking the dead into their eternal beds. This time there is nobody's chiming call for the guidance of those lost souls. Seven souls. Seven lost. 

Seven 

lost.

 

f o u r

The halls quieten as the numbers thin. Presences imprinted into the walls, energies that wind up existing only in shadows and dark corners. Another two graves. Another two buried. The world grinds to a halt and folds in on itself. He wonders if he is numb because he cares too little, or cares too much. 

The result is the same. Nine graves in a line.  The deaths feel like they will never stop burning, just under his skin, a wound he can never reach to heal.

 

f i v e

Circumstances of their own choosing. It is little comfort when it ends the same, two more holes in the ground, two more lives wasted. A scrap of cloth in a grave meant for a body. Maybe, as the choice they made, they will be more at peace than the others.

Or not. _He_ was never one to be quiet and fade into the background. It's hard not to wonder what the liar will do with all that free time.

Maybe... the other would be free already, shining in the night sky, somewhere, somewhere,  _somewhere_. 

Just when he thinks he's lost all sensation the wounds open again, bleeding loss and pain and  _fear._

 

s i x

It is the end. He's sure they will die. They're all certain. The explosions sound farther and farther away, the world feeling fainter and fainter.

This is it, they think. The end. How fitting that the fifty-third cast would be together again, at the end of the series, endings and endings and _endings_.

 

 

The rubble above them shifts; the sky is blue, and the air is sweet. They look to the graves in the courtyard, still and intact, surrounded by the rubble of the set and the glass of the sky. But nobody greets them.

Survivors. The word rings hollow in their minds.

There will always be the question, quiet, unspoken.

 

_What made us special enough to outlive them?_

 

e n d


End file.
